What it means to be "Mad"

Jean-Paul Sartre said, "Why Write? Each has his reasons: for one, art is a flight; for another a means of conquering. But one can flee into a hermitage, into madness, into death" (1199). The key word in this sentence is "madness." Let us focus on that word and what it means to be mad. A mad person is not necessarily a bad person, an angry person, or an uneducated person. Although the word has a negative connotation, the most beautiful things can make someone go mad. Understanding universal ideas can make an individual go mad. On the contrary, the understanding of the smallest details have the ability to drive someone crazy as well. What makes the mad person "mad" is the word, detail. Without attention to detail, madness would not exist.

Sartre was a man of detail. He believed in abstract freedom. By "abstract freedom" I aim to label his idea of freedom as metaphysical and subjective. In class, while presenting, many people were trying to define his idea of freedom. They were all logical in their educated guesses and hypothetical analyses, but my take on his idea of freedom was simpler. I believe he wanted to give the individual the literal meaning of the word freedom.He aimed to define freedom as a person's conscious understanding of the world. He denied and critiqued accepted values and wanted to find a justification for true freedom.

In his book, "Nausea," the protagonist Roquentin is in disgust with the outside world. He begins to realize that this feeling of disgust he feels is towards people and objects all around him. He wants to free himself from comparing the present with the meaningless past. He wants to perceive objects on his terms- new terms- not terms set by others. He is disgusted by the names, colors, and special attributes that people give objects. Roquentin and Sartre apply a detailed observation of "detail" itself. Roquentin is meticulously analyzing and unraveling his disgust for all the details given to objects that exist by accident. Is Roquentin going mad? No, he is just going in over his head trying to understand the truth and meaning of creation.

Freedom, for Satre is the idea of leaving behind the past and applying yourself to the present, without any precedented ideas. The way he thinks might not be applicable to a land full of rules, but he paves way for independence and free thinking. Through my interpretation of Sartre, I believe that madness can be reached when a person thoroughly dissects a specific aspect of life. Think about the idea of death. You have just been in a fatal car accident. The car has flipped over. You see the passenger covered in blood and you are grasping for air with the seat belt tightly pressing against your chest as you face the asphalt. You have created this scenario in your head. Now try and imagine what you think will happen to your friend and yourself. There is no way it can be done without going mad. Most people can not handle the feeling of madness which includes: over-thinking, overanalyzing, researching, breaking down, repeating, rejecting, questioning and denying. Madness is something that comes naturally for people who question existence, mortality and purpose. Satre is enlightening. I might not be interpreting him the right way, but a life just lived without wondering why and how is not a life worth living.

Sartre, Jean-Paul. “From What is Literature?” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticsim.

2^nd ed. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York, NY, 2010. 1199-1213. Print.

To Present, or Not to Present...

For me presentations are always a drag. A group of people choose to work together and because we're not in high school anymore, it gets hard to actually meet and fully discuss and analyze a well thought out presentation. From my college experience (not this one), presenting together does not turn out well when everyone is on different pages. I can say my group and I definitely saw eye to eye, but we just did not have the time to create a fascinating activity to engage the whole class in. On top of lack of time and summer traffic, philosophy is too deep to condense into 20 minutes. I think the thrill of going up in class with classmates is exciting, but HAVING to do a presentation feels so redundant when not enough time (time in life in general) is given for a GROUP to come up with an original activity.

This is completely a rant... a mixture of my ideas towards presentations. I actually love my group members. I find them all to be educated intellectuals. Due to the presentation research, I was able to really analyze Sartre and his many books and essays. I guess I like controlling the outcome of things and the way things flow, so group work feels like so much more effort for me than an individual presentation would. But I definitely can go against myself, because a group of creative individuals could also come up with a great collaborative presentation. Like all things I am not certain about, here is my evaluation of a simple presentation. I think I just don't have enough time in general, therefore I'm venting on the effects group presentations have on me. My ideas are always subject to change. I might take all of this back.

Phenomenology

• The study or description of appearance.
• A priori- knowledge that is independent of experience.
• Things exist independently of human knowledge
• Study of consciousness.
• Leave the empirical world out of the equation.
• Objects and appearance, not observation and experience.

Hermeneutics

• Whereas existentialism and phenomenology focus on description, hermeneutics stresses interpretation.

Husserl

• His phenomenological view describes not things but our consciousness of things.
• “Science of essential structures of consciousness”- what is on our mind when we think of something.

Martin Heidegger

• Influenced by Husserl. He combined his Husserl's idea with that of hermeneutics.
• He changes the focus from study of consciousness to the experience of being there (dasein)
• Heidegger said that being and existence is continually changing.
• He aimed to understand the being and rejected dualism.
• The theory of a priori forms is Heidegger’s theory of existence.
• To understand the essence of existence human beings must deny themselves of any consideration of purpose and realize mortality and frailty.
• For Heidegger, the enlightened authentic people are self-determining, fulfill their ontological nature and experience the world in all its beauty and ugliness, while inauthentic masses who conform to social convention, babble, enjoy superficial things and ont know what is going on.

Qu’est-ce que la literature? (1948,What is Literature?)

The key chapter is “Pourquoi ecrire?” (“Why Write?”)

Intro

v Sartre argues that the experience of freedom is the experience of literature.

v While reading, freedom is demonstrated when a reader foresees, waits, hypothesizes, dreams, hopes, or is deceived by the text.

v Authors need the readers freedom for their work to exist authentically.

v Without giving readers that power of freedom, a work will not be read, and an author will not be an author, because they did not do their job right.

v In, “Why Write,” Sartre values prose more and in doing so, he discounts poetry and overlooks ways in which language determines consciousness (as Heidegger focused on).

MOVIE

v To be conscious is to relate to an item in the world, rather than relate it to an inner representation of it in the head.

v Who you are is what you do, there is no pre-determined character of who you are.

“Why Write?”

v “Each has his reasons: for one, art is a flight; for another a means of conquering. But one can flee into a hermitage, into madness, into death” (1199).

v Why do you write?

v Humans are revealers.

v Through the reality of humans, “‘there is’ being”

v For ex: We are the ones that point out the beauty of a sunset or the beauty of wild animals. We are the “consciousness” that reveals the nature around us.

v “One of the chief motives of artistic creation is certainly the need of feeling that we are essential in relationship to the world.” (1200).

EXAMPLE: A novice painter asked his teacher:

“When should I consider my painting finished?”

And the teacher answered:

“When you can look at it in amazement and say to yourself ‘I’m the one who did that.’”

v “Now the writer cannot read what he writes, whereas the shoemaker can put on the shoes he has just made if they are his sixe, and the architect can live in the house he has built” (1201).

v A writer needs to wait for a reader. (Top of 1201) “Without waiting, without ignorance, there is no objectivity” (1201).

v A writer does not create for himself, he creates for others.

v The joint effort of author and reader is needed to bring about the work of the mind.

v There is a dialectic relationship between the object and subject. (top of 1202)

v Reader’s subjectivity is extremely important to give worth to the literary object.

v Ex: While Raskolnikov is waiting for the crime scene to unravel, so are we as the readers. Each word shapes our feelings. So does this mean the writer writes to make us feel the way he wants us to feel?

v What is the writer appealing to?

v The writer is appealing to the “Reader’s Freedom!”

v The work of art does not have an end. The absolute end is the value. “The work of art is a value because it is an appeal” (1205).

v “The writer should not seek to overwhelm; otherwise he is in contradiction with himself…” (1205).

v In order to make his work exist, the author must address to the freedom of readers…”the more we experience our freedom, the more we recognize that of the otherl the more he demands of us, the more we demand of him” (1206).

v “Writing is a certain way of wanting freedom; once you have begun, you are committed, willy-nilly” (1213).

v Committed to what, he says… (last paragraph in the book)

v The question left unanswered is…

v “For WHOM do we write?”

-"I think against myself."- Sartre

-If human beings are truly free, how are we to live our lives?

-Sartre critiqued accepted values because he wanted to find a philosophical justification for freedom. Does that make sense?

Additional Reading: Nausea by Sartre

Wikipedia:

"Over time, his disgust towards existence forces him into near-insanity, self-hatred; he embodies Sartre's theories of existential angst, and he searches anxiously for meaning in all the things that had filled and fulfilled his life up to that point. But finally he comes to a revelation into the nature of his being. Antoine faces the troublesomely provisional and limited nature of existence itself."

"In his resolution at the end of the book he accepts the indifference of the physical world to man's aspirations. He is able to see that realization not only as a regret but also as an opportunity. People are free to make their own meaning: a freedom that is also a responsibility, because without that commitment there will be no meaning"

*The unfamiliarity and hostility of physical objects

MERCY

"I will honor my son with the name, Amar," my mother uttered as she gave birth to me and soon after left me forever. The word, Amar, signifies a long life, one that my mother was unable to fulfill. Today, I stand in the middle of my friends and family with a strength that no one can cripple. These are my brothers. I will protect them from any harm that comes their way. I may be of the same age as them, but I have put it upon myself to be their protector, their guardian. Not all of us are fortunate enough to have two healthy parents. Our tribe is all we have. Nature is our home. Outsiders might pity us, but I know that not even the wealthiest person can endure the pain and suffering my brothers and I have undergone. The richest person might be the poorest at heart.I pray for one thing. I pray that nature will be on the side of all those I love. I pray that nature will give me the one thing my mother left me with. I pray that I will fulfill the long life that my mother was unable to complete.

Formalists want readers to avoid dissecting a piece of writing based on its historical content, psychological aspect, or author's background. Formalists advocate intrinsic analysis of the text, rather than the emotions behind the author's purpose. Victor Shklovsky was a Russian Formalist whose basic theory was for people to see things with a fresh pair of eyes. He was not interested in the habitual way of viewing things. Let us view this picture and "defamiliarize" the idea of a group of African boys. They are not just skinny and barefoot boys, living in poverty, covered in raggedy garments. They are alert and keen. All six of them are aware of a picture being taken of them. The photograph shows how each of them has a unique expression on their faces, demonstrating their individuality. The three boys on the right are in fighter position. The boy in the long dress is the only one looking away from the photograph. He is ready to playfully fight someone (probably one of his friends.) He is in his own world. The one next to him is tense and might not trust the photographer or anyone who seems too friendly towards his family. The third one from left to right feels like he has no choice but to fight, if need be. The third one (from right to left) is born to confidently fight. He is ready to take this picture. He wants people to observe his confident stance. Finally, the two friends on the right are compliant with the photographers demands, just posing to take the picture. They seem intrigued by the photographer and the reasons behind why such a snapshot is being taken.

All six individuals have one thing in common, they are the face of hope even when life takes them down. This picture symbolizes power, righteousness, and change.

Shklovsky, Victor. VahiD. 2007. 30 Sept. http://www.vahidnab.com. Web.

Plato and the Armenian Genocide

If Turkey were to govern a society similar to the Republic Plato was aiming to create, it would be logical for the Turks not to teach their citizens the vile history of its past. Plato aimed to create a censored community, one that would teach only what's good. Plato writes, "Now, I think that even if these stories are true, they oughtn't to be told so casually to young people and people who lack discrimination; it's better to keep silent..." (47). Plato had flawed, but pure intentions in excluding negative stories in order to create a morally right society. On the other hand, Turkey is wrongfully censoring the horrible truth from its community. Turkey is silencing the truth of the Armenian Genocide for all the wrong reasons. Unlike Plato, Turkey is not aiming to create a society based on virtue and righteousness, Turkey is aiming to blind the world of its unjustifiable misdoing.

Today, a nation based off Plato's Republic can not exist. Turkey can not constantly powder its blushing face. The natural red hue will eventually seep out. Serj Tankian, the lead vocalist of System of a Down, said "Many presidential candidates, before they become presidents, make a statement saying they'll recognize the genocide, however most presidents as they get into office shy away from the responsibility of calling it a genocide..." Whose responsibility is it to tell the truth? Plato holds truth, justice, and virtue on a pedestal, but he himself denies the rightful practice of truth by creating a society based on censorship. Presidents today also try creating a society based on silence. They use the power of rhetoric to persuade the masses in believing in their promises. When rhetoric plays a role in believing what seems to be true, the truth is weightless. At times like this, power outweighs the truth.

Would Plato take the side of Turkey or Armenia? Plato would be on Armenia's side, because Plato is on Truth's side. On the other hand, Plato is all for formulating a society based on concealing what's evil. Turkey is trying to conceal the deliberative killing of the Armenian race. Plato, what is morally more important: Forming a Turkish nation based on lies in order to hide it's horrid mistakes or allowing the world to collaboratively agree on the true events of the Armenian Genocide?

Plato. “From Republic.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticsim.

2^nd ed. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York, NY, 2010. 41-77. Print.